MGRR x FE14: War Has Changed - Side Birthright
by TouNiiSan
Summary: Hoshidans and Nohrians alike are about to learn a valuable lesson from a cyborg ninja who was suddenly dropped into their world.
1. Prologue

Prologue – Venice?

Raiden was a cyborg fighter employed by Maverick Security Consulting Inc. A normal day in the job was supplying security, although in rare cases, the job also involved fighting enemy soldiers. In such rare cases, soldiers would be cyborgs under another private military company (PMC), or even Unmanned Gears (UG), autonomous war machines, under the same company.

And they were, for about ten or fifteen minutes. Barely ten minutes after that, Raiden was fighting medieval soldiers with swords and spears, without HF enhancements. The situation sounded like something out of a wacky 80's movie.

How did this happen?

It all started in Guadalajara, Mexico, shortly after Raiden had purchased an authentic Mexican civilian disguise and stealthily made his way into the sewers with Blade Wolf. The AI had been outfitted with an upgraded body courtesy of Doktor. Remote piloting and AI wiping had been disabled, so Wolf was free to aid Raiden as he chose.

The two entered the sewers to investigate rumors of Desperado involvement, and eventually managed to encounter a laboratory hidden in the sewers. A stray shot fired by an Unmanned Gear, however, triggered an explosion from a strange device that wiped out everything from his vision, and subsequently, the entire lab.

Boris knew something was wrong when all of Raiden's vitals suddenly vanished, as if he had suddenly gone offline without warning.

"Raiden! RAIDEN!" Boris shouted into the codec. There was no response.

"Dammit!"

And then, Raiden and Wolf suddenly appeared aboveground. They had gone from the sewers in Guadalajara to a European city bustling with people. The gondolas and the water around the buildings seemed to indicate that they were in Venice.

"Communications unavailable."

"Impossible, in a city like Venice, there's got to be some signal-" Raiden began to check. There wasn't any signal. Not in a giant city like Venice.

"Are we…are we in the past?"

"Location match: Venice, approximately 73.5 percent."

"Venice, huh. What year?"

Raiden quickly noticed that some of the gondolas had docked at his shore, and these gondolas were filled with soldiers. But not cyborg soldiers: soldiers in plate armor with swords, spears, battle axes, and bows.

"Well, we seem to be in the medieval times."

This was how it all began.

* * *

For Corrin, things had not gone according to plan.

His Hoshidan army had made it into Cyrkensia and found an opportunity to defeat King Garon then and there. And they had formulated a plan: Azura, disguised as the night's singer Layla, would perform for King Garon, enabling the other soldiers to capture him in the middle of the performance and put an early end to the war, forcing Nohr to negotiate for peace. But Garon was under heavy guard, and some of his troops were stationed around the entrance to the stage, before the disguised Azura had even walked onstage to perform.

"Well, well, well, just what do you think you're doing, Corrin?"

Corrin's head snapped towards the king of Nohr in shock, before realizing that Garon was addressing somebody else: the person on the stage surrounded by guards.

"I think you have me mistaken for someone else." The other said calmly.

"Zola?!" Takumi snapped.

"I-it wasn't me!"

"I had expected a plan, but nothing so utterly foolish as this." Garon continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that the figure he was addressing wasn't Corrin. "What possessed you to appear before me without any of your men? I can execute you here and now."

The figure started to speak but quickly burst out laughing, somehow unable to take Garon seriously. What being on earth could have the brass balls to laugh at King Garon to his face?

"Don't do it Father! Corrin is sick!" Elise, Corrin's adopted younger sister, shouted.

"If you mean to die in front of me to stop this war you are a fool." Garon growled. "When you die, I will invade Hoshido and take all of it, banishing the Hoshidans to the darkness of Nohr."

"Father! No!" Elise begged.

"Heh, your daughter is right on this one. I'd listen to her if I were you."

"Execute him!"

The cavaliers closed in with their weapons, but were just as soon blown ten feet into the air before landing in the water in several splashes. Corrin gaped, his wasabi plate-wide eyes following the height of the splashes to their cause.

The figure appeared to be a ninja in scanty black armor with white hair and the shiny face plate of an unknown Nohrian knight over his face. For all the muscle it accentuated, it was a grim look, too grim to be Hoshidan, but leaving too little to the imagination to be Nohrian. Corrin could only think that such a figure was on neither side of the war.

But in the meantime, a kidnapping attempt with Garon and his siblings on full alert would be too risky. He had to escape quietly and head elsewhere.

* * *

Shakespeare in Venice was turning out to be great so far. Raiden considered himself more a movie person than a theater person, but given the events that had happened so far, he might consider taking Rose and Little John to a theater instead of the movies next time he had the chance to catch a break.

Ten minutes into past-Venice, a dozen armored soldiers with swords and spears (not even the high-frequency variety) had rushed him, only to be unseated from their horses and dumped unceremoniously into the water around the stage with a variety of capoeira and breakdancing maneuvers. Being a cyborg ninja gave Raiden the unique privilege to do so, especially in medieval Venice. The HF Blade would be absolutely overkill, so he kept it sheathed in this encounter.

A volley of arrows flew his way next, but Raiden, not one to be entirely ungrateful for free entertainment, decided to entertain his entertainers by cutting into perfect halves lengthwise each and every arrow fired at him.

The archers weren't amused. Amazed, maybe, but not amused. Oh well. In due time, he'll learn how to make patterns out of the arrows for their amusement, but until then, they could enjoy the free diving lessons he would provide them.

"So it's come to this. You dare to point your sword at our king… The same man you once called Father."

A blonde man on horseback but no helmet approached him, flanked by a woman with cotton candy hair and no helmet and a foot soldier with no helmet. Maybe the lack of helmets had something to do with his surprising entrance.

Basic battlefield protection aside, Raiden looked down at the sword in his hand, which he had pilfered off of one of the soldiers he knocked into the water earlier and which he had used to cut a volley of arrows into perfect halves not too long ago.

"This isn't my sword." He replied with an innocent shrug. Strangely the blonde man didn't seem all that amused. Perhaps a diving lesson was in order?

The blonde horseman drew a sword cackling with electricity. Of course, it was without the hum of an HF blade, but the electricity was there. Medieval technology, Raiden had to admit, was more advanced than he had given credit for.

"You've changed, brother." The blonde man said. "What have the Hoshidans done to turn you into this?"

"Hoshidans?" What were they, some codename for the predecessors of the Patriots?

Raiden was interrupted by a transmission from Blade Wolf.

"Raiden, it would be beneficial for you to stop playing around with the medieval soldiers and assist in finding a way back to the mission field." Wolf had opted to patrol for a return route or signs of a return route prior to his confrontations, switching to Bluetooth so they could at least communicate in a time when satellite signal was utterly absent.

"I know, I was just having some fun-"

"You call this slaughter _fun_?!" The blonde shouted.

"Slaughter _is_ fun!"

"Now's not the time, Peri."

"I agree with the blonde nobleman. Or have you forgotten that we are still on a mission?" Wolf intoned.

"…Right. And by the way, nobody died."

"That reason alone hardly excuses your conduct towards an outmatched enemy force."

Ignoring Wolf's critical remarks, the cyborg ninja broke into a ninja run, directly over the prince and his retainers and back to his mission.

* * *

Meanwhile in Corrin's army…

"Where's Zola?" Corrin asked.

Takumi carried the Nohrian sorcerer, or at least his corpse, back to his brother.

"Dead. Two halves of an arrow straight through his chest. Must have been when the black ninja was cutting the arrows in half."

* * *

A/N: Just getting this idea off my back for a while. I've been able to play Fates not too long ago. I would be able to continue it depending on how far I progress through Fates.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Artificial Reunion

The maids in Nohr whispered that Princess Camilla, who adored her baby brother despite the decision he had to make, had found her silver lining. Said silver lining was closer to a bright ray of sunshine parting the clouds. In fact, since the start of this war with Hoshido, it was the best news she had heard:

Corrin had returned to Nohr.

Hearing that her baby brother was alive and well had gotten her spirits up immediately. Hearing that he arrived alone had her bursting with joy. She immediately ordered her retainers Selena and Beruka to come with her, and rode her wyvern to Cheve post-haste. But not everything would be so straightforward.

The first thing Camilla noticed upon arriving in Cheve was a black beast bounding towards the city. The beast turned a corner, having noticed them, and had bounded straight towards them. Camilla quickly mounted her wyvern and prepared her battle axe, but the beast stopped rather than choose to strike any of them. It was strange behavior for a beast.

"My my, what do we have here?"

The beast appeared to be a wolf but was covered almost entirely in sleek black armor, ending in a silvery cordlike tail. Uniform red eyes glowed through a black and silver armored helmet. The teeth were strangely jagged and rectangular, but somehow lined evenly along the beast's helmet.

"Greetings, dragon riders."

"It talks?!" Selena yelped.

"I am IF Prototype LQ-84i." The armored wolf continued to elaborate. "An additional prototype interface enables verbal communications."

"What does that even mean?! Speak normally!" Selena shouted. Gods, the armored wolf was worse than Laurent.

"It appears that you do not possess the technical expertise of my usual correspondents."

"What?! You-"

"Calm down, Selena." Camilla chided, and turned to the strange armored wolf. Well then, what may we do for you…"

"IF Prototype LQ-84i."

She was a royal and thus had education and etiquette enough to get names on the first try, but this was by far the strangest name Camilla had ever heard assigned to anybody. Even Odin, Leo's retainer, couldn't conceive of something this outlandish despite his penchant for naming weapons and armors with the longest and most ridiculous names, and coming up with hundreds of such names for backup in case the first ones failed.

"Lady Camilla. Something approaches." Beruka interrupted.

Camilla looked towards Selena, who had now gone from sulking to full alert. She decided to listen as well, and was able to do so with almost no effort.

Somewhere behind the armored wolf was the sound of footsteps she knew well, and had been trained to discern. It was the footwork of a Hoshidan ninja, although from the sound of the footsteps, whoever was running towards her was either outrageously inexperienced or making no attempt to conceal their movement.

"Are you with Hoshido, IF Prototype Elle-Kew LXXXIVI?"

"'Hoshido' undefined. Term unknown."

"From the Outrealms then?" Camilla mused, but her musings were interrupted when the Hoshidan ninja with the stealth skills of a dragon stopped a few feet away from IF Prototype Elle-Kew LXXXIVI.

If it were any other Hoshidan ninja, Camilla and her retainers would have quickly and mercilessly put an end to him. This one, however, was different.

His head was covered in a white hair she knew all too well. Not the thin stringy white hair falling out of her father's head, or the thicker curls Leo's other retainer grew, but the thick youthful white locks she had seen covering the head of only one person in her life.

"Corrin..."

Except the hair, everything else about the Corrin that stood before her was different from the Corrin that betrayed Nohr for Hoshido. When he left her, he was about as tall as she was without her heels on. Now he was certainly taller than Xander, and more muscular.

The white, scaly armor was replaced with a black scantly-plated armor mainly covering his chest and arms. It seemed to be sturdier, although part of it must have been attributed to his new physique. Still, the angular visor and overwhelming blackness of the armor were nothing but Nohrian, and it reassured Camilla that he had at least not forgotten that part of his life. Nobody but a young Hoshidan noble raised in Nohr could make the two styles go together almost seamlessly; she was even proud of him for sneaking those Nohrian details right under the Hoshidans' nose.

Strangely, Camilla even found the armor cute. Corrin could be expected to take after Xander in appearance, or perhaps Leo, but he seemed to have taken after Camilla more than either of his brothers. His heels were only a little shorter than hers, though he would have been able to see over her head just fine without them. And just like Xander had said about her armor countless times, whatever armor Corrin was wearing now barely seemed to cover anything: she could see his thighs bulge through his pants, where the armor wasn't covering, as well as his cleanly sculpted abdominal muscles.

"Wolf?"

Even his voice was more mature, deeper and huskier...

* * *

"Wolf?" Raiden turned to the AI.

"Analyzing subjects." Wolf had instead decided to communicate through private channels rather than address him verbally. "The noblewoman's choice of outfit is unusual. In medieval times, it would not be optimal for battle."

The noblewoman's outfit was less unusual than unreal. Heck, the noblewoman didn't seem real herself. One recent conversation with Doktor came to mind…

"There's another school of thought on precisely what constitutes AR…" the East German scientist began.

"Seriously, more of this?" Raiden was not amused.

"It defines AR as anything which obscures the boundary between reality and that experienced by the viewer." Doktor continued, disregarding his audience's lack of amusement.

"Well how would that be different from VR?" Raiden decided to amuse Doktor anyway.

"Well, for example, let's say that you and I are having a nice chat, face-to-face. Suddenly, I disappear!" Poof! And in my place appears a ravishing, nubile young woman..."

The last part practically summarized what had happened within the past hour or so. Raiden on his mission in Mexico was (partially) having a nice chat with Doktor, over codec, if that counted as face-to-face. Suddenly, Doktor disappeared and within the hour he was speaking with a ravishing, nubile young woman. Raiden's heart belonged to Rose, but it didn't stop him from realizing that this young woman did not intend to present herself modestly. Her long flowing lilac hair was left untied; there was probably enough of it to weave into one of Doktor's shirts. The blonde nobleman he had met earlier and his lackeys were missing helmets, but this woman somehow thought it was smart to be missing a breastplate on top of missing a helmet. (Her lackeys at least were more sensible in that regard.) Raiden could only perceive her decision not to armor herself as utter laziness, as if she existed perpetually in her bedroom without having fully stepped onto the battlefield. Mistral could be forgiven for being a cyborg with augmented senses; this woman, fighting in a medieval setting as a flesh and blood human with barely any armor covering certain critical areas, was more difficult to forgive.

It then occurred to Raiden that the lilac-haired woman and her lackeys had dismounted from dragons. Dragons. Seeing UG's shaped like various monsters and whatnot in his VR exercises had inoculated Raiden to their presence, so it took some time before he realized he was looking, not at mechanical dragons, but at flesh and blood dragons. Raiden had decided to turn on his smell receptors seeing as he was no longer in the sewers and had smelled rotting meat mixed with lilac-scented perfume. The dragons were moving, but somehow rotting.

"Forget the outfit for now. Is all of this real? The dragons and everything?"

"It would be safe to assume that this is the case. However, current evidence is inconclusive."

"How come no one said anything? How come not one of the soldiers mentioned something about riding zombie dragons to battle?"

"Perhaps we are in a timeline where undead wyverns not only existed, but see regular usage."

"Another world..."

"...It is almost certain." Raiden was struck speechless.

"Corrin…"

That came from the lilac-haired woman, who was looking straight at him. Her bodyguards stuck close by, ready to strike if he exhibited any hostile action. For their human composure and antique weaponry, they seemed fairly capable.

"Corrin, is that you? Come to big sister, darling." She definitely had him mistaken for someone else.

Her accent had maybe a slight tinge of German, but gave no clue as to whether or not she was the AR. All things considered, discussing AR was rather moot, in one sense at least. Raiden was not in an augmented reality; Raiden was in an _alternate_ reality.

Actually, Raiden was even inclined to drop the "reality" part of alternate reality. Wherever he was was alternate for sure, but Raiden was seriously doubting whether what he was seeing was real. No woman would seriously approach a black-clad cyborg ninja like a lover while seriously mistaking him for her little brother. The entire debacle felt like something out of Otacon's Japanese animes.

The lilac-haired woman tiptoed up and grabbed onto his visor, not that she would be able to bring the head or the visor of a cyborg ninja down by any amount, and was basically left hanging there on tiptoe. Oddly, that gesture was the best advice Raiden had gotten since coming to this world. AR in alternate universe medieval times might make his perception of reality worse, and Raiden was tired of spinning in circles when he wasn't fighting. The simple solution, if not a conclusive one, was to turn off the visor altogether. The visor split down the middle and parted towards the sides of his head.

* * *

Camilla gasped when the visor split, and was left agape when she saw the face that appeared behind the visor.

The entire lower jaw was covered in armor so tight as to almost seem like an actual jaw and the left eye by a sleek dark bandage. Only a small triangular section of his flesh including his right eye, nose, and upper lip was left uncovered when the visor split magically. Corrin was neither the cute adolescent she had doted on for years, nor the young naive prince who had betrayed Nohr for Hoshido, but a hardened veteran.

"You poor thing…oh you poor thing…"

Corrin was silent and completely unmoving. Camilla understood. He had to be strong for her. He ran away from the Hoshidans after they turned him into this and had to be strong for his big sister.

"You don't have to pretend anymore. Big sister is here. Everything is okay now…"

She had heard reports from soldiers that the Hoshidan army lead by her brother was growing through some rather unconventional means. Some soldiers were won over to his army, others were captured and convinced to assist, but there were also rumors that Corrin's Hoshidan soldiers were marrying and having children in the war. How did these children grow into adults in a matter of hours? They were stashed somewhere where they can grow up quickly and safely in only a few days, probably hours', time.

Those rumors sounded utterly ridiculous, and Camilla almost executed the messenger on the spot for even suggesting such a possibility, but if a child could be raised into an adult soldier in one place while the other soldiers waited, why couldn't somebody take advantage of that to train Corrin into a veteran soldier in the same amount of time? At the cost of an eye, possibly more. The thought of the hardships he went through since he made the utterly misguided decision to side with Hoshido made her want to mutilate and kill those barbarians all the more-

Then moonlight bathed Corrin, and then she knew.

"Sorry, I don't think you have the right person." The black ninja told her, but she had already realized that and formed her own conclusion from this disastrous revelation.

"But you seem to know about this area. Maybe you can help-"

"I will help…"

"Great. Now do you have a map-"

"I will help you reach one place: the afterlife." Camilla's eyes glinted dangerously as the moonlight revealed the ninja's blue eye opposite the bandage: Corrin's eyes were red. "How dare you pass yourself off as Corrin…"

"Wait! Whatever resemblance has to be a coincidence-"

"Selena! Beruka! To me!" All talk was pointless now, the fool even confirmed her suspicions when his voice changed into a sort of vampiric rasp. Well, he'll have plenty of time to rasp when she's captured him, cut off his limbs, and forced him to tell her where Corrin was.

But all of that would have to wait. The collective footsteps of a small army was approaching Cheve.

* * *

Aware that Corrin was headed inward to seize the Nohrian throne, Garon turned back from Cyrkensia to defend it. To have to retreat into his kingdom was frustrating, to ponder his frustrations, even more so.

The adopted prince had become so powerful since he returned to his birth family it was utterly ridiculous. And he had the nerve to make the Nohrian army look ridiculous. Ten cavaliers would make even an experienced soldier struggle a little, but he blew them all into the waters instead. And if laughing at his execution order wasn't enough, he decided to split the archers' arrows as though he were a stage performer. Xander and his retainers had him trapped in the stage, but he leapt over them and ran from them without so much as sustaining a single injury. All of this was to make him, King Garon of Nohr, look ridiculous, and a man in his position could not afford to be made to look ridiculous.

All of this might was founded upon strength, however, and as Iago had advised him, there was still someone close enough to Corrin to manipulate. Someone who had served the prince all his life…

In the army's path was a lone youth, and judging by his clothes and the tone of his skin, a member of the Ice Tribe. Just another pest.

"Clear the road! The royal army is passing through!" The paladin at his right hand barked.

The youth did not move.

"I said clear the road! We are authorized to use force, if you do not-"

The youth dashed forward. The paladins beside him rushed the youth, but he dashed right past the attackers, who had already gone several paces before turning their horses around and realizing his target. He had only one target: the king himself.

Garon drew his axe, but the boy showed no intent of stopping. He plunged straight towards the king in furious determination, a poison vial raised high above his head.

The king felled him with a single slash, but the boy's attack had left its mark. There was a needle attached to that vial, and that needle had managed to pierce his skin. The jet black poison was quickly dripping, from the vial through the needle, into his veins, sapping him of even the strength to pull it out.

The last thing King Garon heard before his vision faded to black was the Ice Tribe boy's last words of defiance.

"Die…Garon..."

* * *

A/N: Garon dead already? Where would the plot go, I wonder...

The last part of Garon's inner thoughts is meant to reference Jack Woltz in _The Godfather_. Got to find some way to reference those movies where Metal Gear is involved.

The beginning of the assassination scene was partially meant to reference the opening scene to Revengeance.


End file.
